Do gender stereotypes discourage sportswomen?
Sport is characterised by stereotypes. Hysterical footballers, Neanderthal rugby players and shrieking tennis aces abound, and all too often the stars of sport feel compelled to live up to the public’s image of who they are. Campus is no different when it comes to the stock characters which supposedly exist, such as the butch female sportswoman. How many women have been put off from even trying a particular sport because of the abuse they are sure to receive from their friends? How many are discouraged by how men will see them if they become “butch”?
The problem is that sport as a whole then becomes gendered, with female and male sports divvied up from school age, when it is really unnecessary to do so.
This unhealthy preoccupation with the ‘right’ sport for your gender has wider implications. Women are 15% less likely to participate in sport than their male counterparts, and in organised team sport this figure is much higher. Female boxers, cricketers, even plain old netball players are accused of being ‘manly’ just for having muscles, so it is no wonder that by the time many of them get to university they give up.
This also means that the pool of talent for clubs to pick from is shallow, lowering the overall standard of sport, which inevitably encourages yet fewer women to follow their example.
My own record with sport has been marred by this kind of experience. After my Year 7 PE teacher laughed out loud at my skinny legs, I instinctively shied away from sport. I spent Games lessons standing at the back of the line, pretending to be ill or just making snide remarks about the teacher. Aside from my own personal tragedy, I also have a lacrosse-playing friend who says that she rarely tells any new people that she meets about the sport she plays, principally because of the reaction she gets. She says that it is especially bad from other women.
The stigma can also be to do with the assumptions about sports teams. Not every sports player drinks themselves stupid on punch every week, even if, to be completely honest, most of them do. However, the Nouse office can be a difficult place to be a sports fan, with emphasis on the inner workings of the hallowed corridors of The Guardian taking precedence over the rough-and-tumble of campus Hockey fixtures, let alone Rugby. One gets the distinct impression that the people around me were the ones picked last for teams as well, and most would have rather be ignored altogether and not be picked.
Gender stereotyping does not help the cause of sport and neither does it make our chronically obese nation any less so. All forms of physical exercise are beneficial, and when young people are put off by needless stigmas, it only serves to further entrench negative attitudes towards the healthy lifestyle we constantly claim to be striving for, but which few achieve.
